Every Step Counts
by Baxter the Cat
Summary: Every plan has its flaws and advantages. Some fun, others dangerous.


"Never thought I would end up here again…" A silver furred cat sat in the middle of a jail cell in an underwater base. Most cats don't like water, and this cat was one of them. "Now what am I gonna do…" Just then, a robot came for him. "Baxter The Cat, the Doctor wishes to see you." Baxter stood up and dusted of his blue jeans. "About time, where can a guy get some food around here? You all can't be robots." The robot turned around and faced the opposite way. "Stay quiet and follow me intruder." Baxter had a small grin on his face as he followed. _*Sure, I'll play along just for a little while longer.*_ "Alright robo, let's go." Baxter followed the robot down a long hallway that seemed to turn ever so slightly to the right.

After a short while, they finally made it to the main room in the tall, castle-like building. Baxter whistled in amazement. "Whoa, now this is a HUGE room. Looks like Eggy made a lot of changes around here." A loud voice boomed out over the intercom. "THAT DR. IVO ROBOTNIK YOU BRAINLESS CAT!" Ivo, a.k.a. Dr. Eggman seemingly appeared from the ground. "Now that I've captured you, I can finally analyze your powers. Start with these fine robots right here." Eggman waved his arm in the direction of eggpawns lined against the wall, each on with a certain ability boost. Baxter looked at them and answered, "Look I don't have time for this, I have a life to live ya know." Eggman grinned. "If you defeat these drones, then you may leave." Baxter raised his ear. "And what if I lose?" Eggman held out a hand. "Then you will hand over the Chaos Emerald you have. Do we have a deal?" Baxter just shrugged. "Fine… oh, and you might want to step back once." Eggman took a step back. "Like this?" A grin flashed across Baxter's face. "Perfect." Without any warning, a blur came out of the steel floor and slammed into Eggman's chin, sending him flying. "Nnnoooo!" His head stuck fast into the ceiling as a yellow figure touched down to the floor. "Hiya Baxter!" Baxter lowered his head slightly. "Itake, you timing is always spot on… why didn't you bring Sonic with you?" Itake smiled. "I did but we got separated halfway here." Just then, a blue blur shot out of the hole in the ground. "_*Woot*_ That was fun! We came to get you out of here Baxter." Baxter shrugged. "Sonic the Hedgehog, so you thought I was captured? I was waiting for Eggman to show me where his Chaos Emerald was hidden. All I know for sure is that it's in this base. How are Jason and Max holding up?" Sonic was a little a mad from being used as a diversion but shook it off. "Jason is still hacking the main computer and Max is… well being Max." Baxter let out a sigh. "Making scrap metal is he? Oh well, we need all the scrap we can. Any sign of "The Dark Ones"?" Itake's ears perked up. "Oh them, nope no sign yet. And even if they did show up, we are more than a match for them." Baxter took a few steps towards a capsule. "Sure Sonic and I maybe but your powers still need work. So far, you can only copy fire and a few chaos based techniques." Then an explosion rocked the whole base. Baxter turned on his "wrist watch" and shouted, "Max, what the hell are you doing?! You'll drown us all if you keep that up!"

~O~O~

Max tore apart a few more robots and scrapped some more of the wall off, causing water to start leaking in. He felt the water at his feet. "… That can't be good…" Baxter facepalmed. "We have to move NOW!" Sonic nodded. Itake, on the other hand, asked, "What about the Chaos Emerald?" Baxter had to make a quick decision. He dashed for the emerald and almost got smashed by a falling support beam. With the yellow emerald in hand, they had a grand total of seven emeralds. "Alright, let's get out of here." Max smashed through a few more robots and picked up scrap metal before leaving with the rest. "Jason, how much time do we have left?" Jason looked at his "Watch". "We have five minutes until the place collapses. Six if we're lucky." Max looked ahead. "Looks like it might be four." Sonic looked at Max in a questioning way. "Why's that?" Max pointed upwards to a boss robot. "HO,HO,HO,HO, you thought you could get away with my emerald. Prepare yourselves for my newest invention!" Baxter growled. "WE HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS, THIS WHOLE PLACE IS SINKING YOU KNUCKLEHEAD!". With that, Baxter used his hydrokinetic power to freeze the water around the robot and shattered it. "Let's go guys, I only bought us thirty extra seconds." Jason scanned the area ahead. "There's a sub up ahead, we can use that. I already capture all the data we need from the CPU that Eggman had." Baxter's ears went up. "Excellent Jason, we'll find out what it is later… Wait, where's Itake?" Max's ears circled around. "She is stuck behind a door, closing her off from us." Jason started to run back. "I'll get her, you guys get in the sub." Guard-Robos started to surround the three. Baxter turned to Sonic and Max. "Let's make sure that the Guard-Robos don't destroy this sub."

~O~O~

Jason shot multiple robots away and reached the door. _*Alright, maybe this might do the trick.*_ "Itake, you remember Blaze's pyro powers right?" Itake's ears pricked up. "Yeah, why?" Flames started to appear around Jason. "Use it to melt down the door!" upon hearing this, Itake concentrated the flames around her hands and placed them on the door. "HA!" Within seconds, the door melted to the ground and the ran back towards the sub. When they finally made it, they had thirty seconds to get out. Jason hotwired the sub and the engine powered up. "Punch it Jason!" As soon as they were about 15 feet away, the base blew up sending a shockwave that launched the sub upwards. A dog in the distance saw the sub rocket into the air and thought to himself, "This is gonna be that type of day… I need to get out of town more…" Inside the sub, everyone braced themselves for a rough landing as they plummeted toward the ground. Baxter's mind went into hyper drive and caused him to use his hydrokinetic power to freeze the air around the sub to try to soften the landing. The moment they hit the ground was the moment when the ice shell broke. The dog saw this and sighed. "Hey, are you guys alright?" The first person to pop out of the broken sub was Itake. "Yep, we all okay!" Max coughed. "Easy for you to say, you were the only one who had a soft landing… on me." Baxter, Jason and Sonic finally rose out of the sub. Baxter rubbed the back of this head sheepishly. "Sorry guys, I still don't know my own power yet… heh, heh." Sonic shook some of the ice off of his quills. "Well at least it wasn't water. Still, we have all seven emeralds!" Baxter gave Sonic a blank stare. "I'm not handing them over to you so you can lose them again." A knife stabbed through Sonic's pride as he slumped over in despair. "I don't do that… often…" Jason put a hand on Sonic's shoulder. "He's just joking with you, right Baxter?" Baxter just kept on walking away from them, not even hearing the question. After he was far enough away from the group, he pulled out the lite blue emerald from his pocket and stared at it. "It's just like looking at "her" eyes…


End file.
